Chamber’s triple whammy staggers progressives’ defense of citizen initiatives

Regional News

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It used to be a foregone conclusion that a coalition of progressive groups would challenge an attack this year on laws restricting Arizonans’ ability to pass laws at the ballot box.

The coalition’s unity is now in jeopardy, though, as it tries to adapt to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s most recent strategy: a multi-pronged attack on the ability to propose and pass laws through the voters and bypass the Legislature.

The citizens’ initiative process, a staple of Arizona politics by which voters propose laws at the ballot, allows them to circumvent their elected officials and adopt new laws, often those that the Legislature has ignored or failed to pass on its own.

In the past, it’s been easier to respond to legislative attempts to restrict the citizen initiative process because the fight has been one bill at a time.

Three is another story.

The chamber, the driving force behind a trio of bills at the Capitol that would each make changes to initiatives, appears to have learned from the past, when it pursued a host of measures adopted together in one bill.